Adding a 2nd recording directory

[gilded07]

I record a bunch of shows during the winter/spring and then watch them over the summer with the kids when school is out. My 1TB recording drive is almost full and I don't want to delete stuff.

I was reading in the manual that you can set up a second recording directory. My primary hdd - the C: drive - that has the OS on it only has one application on it and that is SageTV. Its a 400gb hdd that is only using ~10 or 11gb for SageTV and the OS.

If I set up a second recording directory and put it on the C: drive and let SageTV start putting recorded TV shows there can I later move the .mpg files to the main 1TB recording drive later when I've deleted watched shows and have more space? In other words, will I be able to simply cut / paste to move them and have SageTV still know where they are and not lose any of the meta data? I don't really want the 2nd recording directory to be a long term solution. I read where for hdd performance reasons it can be good to have more than one recording directory but I've never had a problem with multiple simultaneous recordings / playback and my 1TB recording hdd.

Edit: and are there any other constraints or possible issues I should know about before adding a 2nd recording drive?

[Naylia]

Personally I'd just add a 2GB drive, dedicate it to recording and never think about it again. The wear and tear from lots of recording and deleting will kill your Sage recording drive faster than normal use and that prevents it from killing your OS partition.

But if you decide you want to temporarily have two and then go back to one after a while here's all you could want to know about moving recordings around: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30697

Another option - buy a wee little SSD drive - move C:/ to that, and make the 400GB drive your secondary recording drive. More storage and speed!

My personal build is 64GB (i think) SSD and then lots of 2TB drives parsed for various purposes: (2TB 1 is Music & Movies, 2TB 2 is Movies Only, 2TB 3 is Sage Recordings). That way when the Sage Recording drive kicks the bucket everything else is safe and secure.

[Fuzzy]

To answer your question, yes, you can easily move recordings from one recording folder to another. Then do a rescan of imported media from sage, and it will recognize the moved file (as long as it wasn't renamed). The only thing is you want to make sure that sage see's the moved files before you remove the old folder, because it won't remove the original one until it sees it NOT in the folder it was in - if that folder is not there, it will assume that drive is just disconnected, and it will remain in the database (in this case, showing twice).

[Brent94Z]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

To answer your question, yes, you can easily move recordings from one recording folder to another. Then do a rescan of imported media from sage, and it will recognize the moved file (as long as it wasn't renamed). The only thing is you want to make sure that sage see's the moved files before you remove the old folder, because it won't remove the original one until it sees it NOT in the folder it was in - if that folder is not there, it will assume that drive is just disconnected, and it will remain in the database (in this case, showing twice).

Fuzzy, somewhat related to this, I just rebuilt my Sage Server and moved 3 recording hard drives to the new server. I didn't need to import anything... just pointed Sage to those drives as recording drives. However, many, but not all, are shown as being archived? Also, I have a number of duplicates... but not everything???? In my recordings I'll see the same show SOMETIMES listed twice and both point to the same file. I'm not sure why but thinking it might have something to do with a bunch of new .properties files that just got created? Do you happen to know what might be causing this? I didn't notice the default for CMT was to create .properties files. I've turned that off and am going to delete all the .properties files that were just created. I'm stepping out for a few hours but thinking you might see this and if that is not what I should do, let me know. LOL

I stuck this here because if there is something I "missed" during the transfer of the hard drives that would have made this smoother it might help the OP.

Thanks!

[Naylia]

Did you do the Advanced Video File Recovery? Or just point to them as your Recording directory?

[Fuzzy]

.properties files are used to track changes to metadata. Sage stores metadata in the recorded file itself when it is created. Anything that changes metadata after that point (if the option is enabled) will write that change in a .properties file. This is to aid in reimporting of those files to the server (would have been nice if you had had those .properties file from your previous install). Something is altering metadata on those files now, (most likely the phoenix api), which is why the .properties files are being generated.

Also, if sage does not recognize a file as a sagetv recording, it will bring it in as archived. - even though it may be in a 'Recording' directory. Functionally, the only difference between a recording folder, and an import folder, is the recording folder can be recorded to, and is subject to diskspace rules for deletion of older recordings.

As for the OP's situation, since he is still working under the same wiz.bin, it is of no consequence, as the data will already be in the wiz.bin for those files, it just has to be reattached to the new file's location.

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by Naylia

Personally I'd just add a 2GB drive, dedicate it to recording and never think about it again. The wear and tear from lots of recording and deleting will kill your Sage recording drive faster than normal use and that prevents it from killing your OS partition.

Thx for the suggestion - I like it. I've been trying not to spend a lot of $ on the SageTV server given the unknown future of SageTV but I think I will look into getting another big hdd to make a 2nd recording drive.

and thx to the other posters - I don't mind the add'l info at all. Interesting reading

[Naylia]

By the way - I meant 2TB hard drive

[Brent94Z]

Originally Posted by Naylia

Did you do the Advanced Video File Recovery? Or just point to them as your Recording directory?

I built the new computer, installed the old hard drives. Pointed Sage to those hard drives as 'Recording' Drives. All my old shows showed up but many are archived (for some reason) and I have random duplicates. I didn't even know there was an Advanced Video File Recovery. LOL

[Brent94Z]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

.properties files are used to track changes to metadata. Sage stores metadata in the recorded file itself when it is created. Anything that changes metadata after that point (if the option is enabled) will write that change in a .properties file. This is to aid in reimporting of those files to the server (would have been nice if you had had those .properties file from your previous install). Something is altering metadata on those files now, (most likely the phoenix api), which is why the .properties files are being generated.

Also, if sage does not recognize a file as a sagetv recording, it will bring it in as archived. - even though it may be in a 'Recording' directory. Functionally, the only difference between a recording folder, and an import folder, is the recording folder can be recorded to, and is subject to diskspace rules for deletion of older recordings.

Thanks, Fuzzy. I'm not exactly sure why, in my case, the recordings were not recognized as previous recordings. I don't mix my recordings drives and my import drives so all files/videos in the recording folders were actual previous recordings done by Sage. Not sure why it got "confused" and archived them or why it created a bunch of duplicates. I'll look into it more and see if I can see anything common in the ones that were archived and have duplicates.

[Naylia]

Here this is the post you need: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...610#post265610

I think if you just remove the properties files for the recordings and then trigger the advanced recovery you'll be fine.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Brent94Z

Thanks, Fuzzy. I'm not exactly sure why, in my case, the recordings were not recognized as previous recordings. I don't mix my recordings drives and my import drives so all files/videos in the recording folders were actual previous recordings done by Sage. Not sure why it got "confused" and archived them or why it created a bunch of duplicates. I'll look into it more and see if I can see anything common in the ones that were archived and have duplicates.

Did you use your old wiz.bin file? or start a new one from scratch?

[Brent94Z]

Originally Posted by Naylia

Here this is the post you need: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...610#post265610

I think if you just remove the properties files for the recordings and then trigger the advanced recovery you'll be fine.

Thank you for the suggestion. I tried that and it didn't work. I'll make another thread though Thanks!

[Naylia]

Originally Posted by Brent94Z

I tried that and it didn't work.

[gilded07]

Originally Posted by gilded07

Thx for the suggestion - I like it. I've been trying not to spend a lot of $ on the SageTV server given the unknown future of SageTV but I think I will look into getting another big hdd to make a 2nd recording drive.

and thx to the other posters - I don't mind the add'l info at all. Interesting reading

I bought a 2TB int hdd and added it to the server. Added it in SageTV as add'l recording drive and works great. Thanx for the suggestion.

[Naylia]

Originally Posted by gilded07

I bought a 2TB int hdd and added it to the server. Added it in SageTV as add'l recording drive and works great. Thanx for the suggestion.